Considerable
attention has been given in previous numbers of the NEW SCIENCE
REVIEW to the researches, discoveries, and theoretical conclusions of
John Ernst Worrell Keely, the inventor of the notable "Keely Motor;"
quite sufficient, it may be, in the opinion of many readers, in view
of the technical language employed, and the fact that the utility of
these inventions has not been demonstrated to the satisfaction of the
general public. Yet the publishers of the REVIEW have excellent
reason to believe that the results of Mr. Keelys researches are all
that have been claimed for them, and that this fact will soon be
publicly demonstrated. They desire, therefore, to offer to their
readers a plain, matter-of-fact, businesslike statement of what Mr.
Keely has actually accomplished; and the writer of the present paper
has been requested to visit the workshop and investigate the
apparatus of the famous inventor, and to state plainly and simply the
results of his investigation.

Before making this statement, however, some preliminary remarks
are necessary. For many years past the Keely Motor has weighed upon
the consciences of Philadelphians as something they ought, in duty
bound, to father, as a sui generis product of the Quaker City, but of
which they grew more and more distrustful as years of promise and
nonperformance passed by, until they ceased to be in a waiting mood,
and fell into one of cynical disbelief. It must be acknowledged that
there was warrant for this. It has been at various times announced
that Mr. Keely had overcome the difficulties that environed him, had
perfected his machinery, and was prepared to demonstrate its workable
powers. Yet this promise, on each occasion, failed to be fulfilled;
the outcome being that doubt grew general, and many people came to
look upon Mr. Keely as a shrewd adventurer, and his motor a
skillfully devised fraud. It is true that this opinion is confined to
people who have no personal acquaintance with Mr. Keelys
achievements. It is not entertained by those who have had the
opportunity to form a well-founded opinion; the capitalists who have
supplied Mr. Keely with the funds for his experiments, and the
scientists and mechanicians who have seen and studied the workings of
his apparatus. But these are the few and the non- insistent. They are
satisfied with their own knowledge, and do not trouble themselves to
pose as missionaries. The public has been permitted to hold what
opinion it pleased, Mr. Keelys supporters being content to wait
until they could offer that most convincing of arguments, a practical
demonstration of the working-power of the much-discussed Keely
motor.

This is the state of the case as it now stands, with the important
exception that the parties directly concerned express themselves as
satisfied that the period of probation has at length passed, that the
Keely motor is now a practical reality, and that the problem of
producing power without cost is solved. For this statement, however,
Mr. Keely is not personally responsible. He claims to have overcome
all the major difficulties, but states that he has certain minor
steps of application yet to make.

As regards my personal knowledge of the question under
consideration, I can only state that hitherto I have belonged to the
party of distrust. Knowing nothing from personal experience of the
matter, and merely aware of the long drawn-out agony of promise and
nonperformance, I have, like the rest of the brotherhood of
ignorance, looked on the affair with incredulity, though not without
a mental reservation that there might be some fire below all this
smoke, and that the men of affairs who have stood behind Mr. Keelys
experiments for so many years were not just the sort of persons
likely to be taken in by a cunning schemer, or to accept plausible
statements without supplementing them with a careful
investigation.

It must be evident, from what is here said, that a certain amount
of preliminary explanation is necessary before any statement of the
present status of affairs can be made. The Keely motor has its
history, and a relation of that history must precede description. Mr.
Keely is today a man of about seventy years of age, a seemingly
robust, well-preserved person, who may have many years of life still
before him. For nearly a quarter of a century part all his time and
attention have been given to the study and development of the power
he had previously discovered, and to whose application he devoted
himself with that untiring energy which has marked inventors in all
time, and through which so many of them have overcome discouraging
obstacles and achieved success. The pathway of the present inventor
has not been made as smooth as many imagine. He has encountered
poverty, and been saved from having the roof sold over his head only
by the aid of a faithful friend. In this respect his history accords
closely with that of many famous inventors in the past.

During his earlier career Mr. Keely was engaged in various
pursuits. He was employed, from time to time, as a physician, a
pharmacist, and in other occupations. But since he was ten years of
age he has been interested in the study of tones and resonances; of
those rapid and incessant vibrations which underlie all we see in the
world around us, and to which all the energies of the acting universe
are primarily due. It is this study which he still continues,and the
power which he has developed is claimed to come from a control of
these vibrations.

Man has long used those vibrations as producers of power. In fact,
there is no other source of energy -- unless gravity has a different
origin. His own body owes to them its powers of movement and
sensation. The steam- power which he employs is but a utilization of
the heat vibrations of the molecules of matter. The electric energy
which he is now coming to employ is a vibration of the ether a
subtler form of substance. Light and radiant heat, which also yield
energy, are other modes of vibration of ether. Magnetism, - in its
turn, has to do with vibratory motion. As regards the practical
application of electricity, strenuous efforts are now being made to
use the electric vibrations immediately, instead of through the
intermedium of chemical action or mechanical friction, drawing these
energies directly from nature and employing them without the need of
intermediate agencies. The energies named -- lights heat,
electricity, etc. -- do not exhaust the vibratory activities of
nature. There are vast ranges of vibration which lie between these,
and others finer and subtler than any of them; and man has yet tapped
but a minor portion of the vast energies of the universe, the bulk of
which are not to be reached by the gross methods hitherto employed.
The energies manifested in the visible activities of nature are
therefore but a fraction of those which are active in the movements
of material and etherial particles, but which take no part in the
movements of masses. How these deep lying energies can be directly
withdrawn from their secret lurking places, and made to move masses
of matter, is a problem to which the attention of many is now being
given, and to the elucidation of which Mr. Keely has for many years
devoted himself, with a seeming success which places his researches
far beyond those of his recent competitors.

In short, Mr. Keely claims to have successfully handled the
problem above named, that of drawing energy directly from the
elements of nature. The mysterious process by which he is enabled to
avail himself of these potent energies is his secret. He has kept it
sedulously to himself, making his patrons familiar only with the
results; in which, indeed, they are chiefly interested. It is to
these results, therefore, that our inquiry must be confined. As
regards these there is a double story to tell, Mr. Keelys researches
having led him to two different series of achievements. For many
years he had at his command an enormous pressure, which he vainly
sought to make useful in the movement of machinery. But for a number
of years past his researches have led him in a different direction,
and a far more promising one so far as practical results are
concerned.

The earlier method, that of gaseous pressure, first calls for
consideration. Mr. Keely still retains, though he no longer uses, the
apparatus in which this pressure was developed and manifested. This
consists of a small but strong cylindrical receiver, a lever whose
long arm is weighted with an iron ball said to weigh five hundred and
fifty pounds,and a lifting arrangement near the fulcrum of this lever
and connected by a tube with the gas cylinder. The only material
employed in this apparatus is said to have been a few drops of water,
introduced into the cylinder. These Mr. Keely claims to be able to
decompose by vibratory influences, and further to decompose the
resulting hydrogen into its elements, the result being a gas or gases
of extraordinary expansive power. For this explanation of the result
we have Mr. Keelys theory only. For the pressure developed we have a
well-established fact. This is that the gas confined within the
cylinder and connecting tube is capable of lifting the weighted
lever, though the adjustment of the arms is such that this
performance requires a pressure of over seventeen thousand pounds to
the square inch. The actual pressure,indeed, seems to be much greater
than this, if, as some observers state, a man weighing over two
hundred pounds has added his weight to that of the iron ball without
bringing down the lever. Mr. Keely states that in some of his
experiments a much greater pressure than here named has been shown,
amounting in one instance to the enormous force of one hundred and
ten thousand pounds to the square inch.

That such an effect can be produced by the disintegration of a few
drops of water seems inconceivable. Yet the gaseous pressure here
employed is perhaps much less than that which is readily obtained in
the case of high explosives. The immense rending power of dynamite
and other recent explosives is due to the great expansion of the gas
arising from their sudden conversion into vapor. Could this gas be
confined, its pressure might prove to be much greater than that above
named. Its energy, however, has hitherto proved beyond the
restraining powers of any material, while the gas employed by Mr.
Keely appears to be within his control. The mystery is that it is
produced from water, and that no other investigator has ever
separated water into such highly expansive gases. The charge has been
made that Mr. Keely employed some secret reservoir of condensed gas,
or other hidden source of power, but of the hundreds of intelligent
persons who have seen the experiment in question no one has been able
to discover anything of the kind, though full opportunity for
investigation has been offered. Two able mechanicians, Mr. Barnet Le
Van, a well-known expert in machinery, and Mr. Linville, a skilled
electrician, have taken the apparatus apart and examined it
thoroughly. Such men were not likely to be easily deceived, and had
any secret attachment been present it would scarcely have escaped
their vigilant eyes. Yet they found everything as represented, and
have given a written statement to that effect. Mr. Keely has also
filled the receiver with water in the presence of investigators,
emptied it before their eyes, and immediately afterward produced the
results above described. In truth, one needs but to see the apparatus
to be satisfied that the theory of a concealed reservoir of gas is
without foundation.

What followed the discovery of this vigorous power? To demonstrate
its lifting energy was one thing, to apply it for the movement of
machinery proved to be quite another. For many years Mr. Keely sought
to accomplish this desideratum, and for as many years failed. He
devised and constructed engine after engine, different in form and
principle, but each proved alike useless for the purpose in view. The
hidden giant steadily refused to be put to work. Over one hundred and
twenty of these machines were built, each new one designed to
overcome some former difficulty; again and again it was announced
that the force was in harness; and again and again disappointment
followed. Yet the imprisoned gas was quite ready to manifest its
power. Holders of great strength exploded, wrecking the shop and
injuring the inventor. Thick walled tubes, specially designed for
their resisting power, were split asunder as if they had been made of
paper. Despite every effort the imprisoned power refused to be held
in leash.

Mr. Keely states that one skilled machinist, a Mr. McPherson,
expressly prepared a tube which he defied him to rend by gas
pressure. This tube was nearly six feet long, and three inches in
internal diameter, while its walls were three inches thick, the
external diameter being nine inches. Its resisting force was
sixty-two thousand pounds to the square inch. Yet it was rent asunder
by the expansive gas produced by the inventor, the thick iron being
split open for a length of eighteen inches.

The difficulty in the practical application of this power seems to
have been, as Mr. Keely states, the impossibility of confining the
gas in any workable machine. It was so rarified that no joint could
contain it, and the instant it was admitted to an engine it totally
escaped, leaving a vacuum in its place. For years the inventor sought
to construct an engine that would prevent this escape; many times he
believed he had succeeded, yet disappointment steadily followed, and
the public incredulity steadily increased. This indefatigable effort
to overcome an unyielding obstacle continued for nearly twenty years.
It was a bitter fight against fate and circumstance. The inventor,
feeling that he had within his reach a giant power, strove
unrestingly to set at work his powerful slave. It was in vain. He was
dealing with an element that refused to be confined in any apparatus
not solid and immovable. All acting machinery must have separate
parts, moving upon or within each other, and the necessary joints or
crevices proved fatal to his hopes. The instant the gas was admitted
it slipped through these and was gone.

So stood matters with Mr. Keely until a few years ago, when,
fortunately for his hopes of success, a new conception came to him by
accident, as he asserts; one of those happy accidents, it would
appear, which only men of the unusual capacity called genius are
ready to take advantage of. Just what this conception was, Mr. Keely,
with business-like caution, keeps to himself. The public, for the
present at least, must be content with its visible results; but these
are sufficiently noteworthy to amply repay consideration. They
indicate two things: First, that Mr. Keely is no longer dealing with
a power arising from gaseous pressure; and, second, that he has made
this power capable of producing rotation, levitation, and other
effects of mechanical energy. What he claims, in regard to the source
of his new system of power, is that he is able to draw vibratory
energy directly from space by the aid of special resonating
expedients, and that this energy can be made to yield powerful
attractive and repulsive force and be converted into vigorous rotary
motion through the use of certain apparatus. The power obtained, he
asserts, is duplex, or has two opposed conditions, like the positive
and negative states of electricity. Mr. Keely denominates these
conditions positive and negative, though with the reservation that
these terms do not imply excess and deficiency, but simply opposite
conditions of energy. He is able, he declares, to disturb the
equilibrium of these opposed states of vibratory activity as they
exist in the elements of nature, to draw them separately into his
apparatus, and to produce mechanical motion as a result of the effort
of nature to restore the disturbed equilibrium.

This sounds like the language employed in electrical theory; and,
indeed, aside from the fact that no evident source of electricity is
present, there are close analogies between the action of
electromagnetism and that of the energy active in the Keely
apparatus. Yet there is a complete absence of the usual mechanical or
chemical agencies for the evolution of electrical energy. The only
operative appliances to be seen are certain resonating arrangements,
and the mystery remains deep how these can yield force. These consist
of an arrangement of slender rods or tongues of metal, which
successively decrease in length, and which evidently are set to sound
different notes of the scale, and of a spirally-curved bugle-shaped
appliance. In addition to these a tuning-fork is employed by Mr.
Keely when ready to set his machinery in motion. Thus, so far as is
visible, the inventors apparatus are in accordance with his theory
of utilizing the vibratory energies of nature.

The question next in order is, what has Mr. Keely to show in
support of his claim that he is able to control a supply of costless
energy and employ it in the movement of machinery ? The proofs of
this which were shown to me are two in number; others were described,
but I can only speak personally of what I saw. The first of these
indicates but a minute employment of force, yet it is significant of
strange influences. It consists in the motion of a magnetic needle,
pivoted in a small paper bow, and placed on a cylindrical stand which
was filled with small tubes. At a distance stood a globular apparatus
hereafter to be described, and the globe and the upright stand were
connected by a length of slender platinum wire. Mr. Keely stood
beside the globe, striking his tuning fork and applying it to the
tongues of metal surrounding the base of the globe. After a few
minutes the magnetic needle suddenly quivered, moved backward and
forward as if in response to the notes employed, and in the end began
to rotate. This movement continued for a considerable time, the
needle spinning rapidly around on its center, and only ceasing when
Mr. Keely removed the box from the stand.

This may seem a trifling experiment; it is, on the contrary, a
significant and unusual one. The movements of the needle, in response
to the notes sounded, indicated that the power came from the globe,
by the channel of the platinum wire, and not from any apparatus
concealed in the stand. It is not the function of a magnet to rotate.
No method is known by which such rotation can be produced in the
absence of mechanical connection. No such connection existed in this
instance. The only influence which could proceed from the stand,
through the paper-box, to the needle, must have been one of
attraction or repulsion; and science at present knows no method of
making a needle rotate under such circumstances as are here
described. Nor does it appear that ordinary magnetic attraction is at
work, for the same rotation was produced when a splinter of wood--
the stem of a match-- replaced the needle, with no trace of metal
except a coating of bronze-colored substance at the ends. This was
made to rotate so rapidly as to become invisible, and continued
without cessation until the needle- box was removed, when rotation
could not be restored without a renewal of the original process.
Keely states that on one occasion the rotation continued for forty
days.

The other experiment shown me was one much more likely to attract
the attention of practical men, as indicating a much greater supply
of energy. It is not easy to explain without a diagram, and I may not
succeed in making it clear. It employs, as its apparent source of
power, the globe of which I have spoken, which is externally of
brass, and of some eight or ten inches diameter. This is placed on a
simple stand and surrounded at bottom with the arrangement of
vibrating tongues mentioned, while near its apex is a small
bugle-like appendix, curved in a spiral, with the mouth of the bugle
opening outward.

Some ten or fifteen feet distant from this sphere stood another
and more complicated apparatus. This was in two parts. One was an
upright brass circle of three feet diameter, the face of the circle
being several inches in width. Through this, at intervals, were
inserted metallic disks or short cylinders of peculiar formation,
which passed through the thickness of the brass, and protruded from
its outer and inner surfaces. These--seventeen in number--were
connected by wires around the inner circle of the ring

Within this brass circle, but having no connection with it, was a
wheel, or rather a hub, with a series of radiating spokes reaching
within two-and- a-half inches of the inner surface of the ring, but
nowhere coming in contact with it. This apparatus turns freely on a
fixed axle. It is thus completely isolated, both from the surrounding
ring and from any force that might be brought to bear on a movable
axle. It is apparently incapable of motion except through a
propelling force applied directly to the spokes or the hub. The
spokes terminated near the disks, but as they were one less in number
than the latter, no more than one could, at any time, stand directly
under a disk.

Such is, briefly described, the arrangement: the brass circle with
its disks; the rimless inner wheel which hung loose on a fixed axle;
and the distant brass globe, with its resonating appliances. A length
of platinum wire, of about the thickness of a knitting needle, passed
from the globe to the ring, where it was connected with one of the
disks. Such was the apparatus, which stood motionless during the
first hour of my visit.

Mr. Keely now approached the globe, took up the tuning fork, and
manipulated, in various ways, the fork, the vibrating tongues, and
the globe. After some minutes had passed in these processes the wheel
suddenly started, moved slightly, and immediately afterward began to
rotate. No further manipulation seemed necessary. The wheel, once
started, continued to rotate steadily during many minutes that
followed. With just what force it moved I am unable to state from
personal observation, having made no test. The natural impression
would be, from its comparatively slow motion, and the ease of
rotation of a wheel turning on a loose sleeve, that the force was
slight. Mr. Keely, however, declares that this is an error, that the
wheel exerts the same force whether moving fast or slow, and that
when making but one revolution in five minutes it has broken ropes
whose power of resistance was two and-a-half tons, and has continued
to revolve deliberately as though it had encountered no opposition.
Concerning this test, all I can say is that I did not see it, though
the inventor declares that it has frequently been shown to others.
The mode of stopping the machine was as curious as its starting. Mr.
Keely simply pulled a piece of wire of a few inches in length from an
aperture in one of the disks, and the wheel instantly ceased turning,
though no hand had touched it.

How is this phenomenon to be explained? Pressure was out of the
question, since the revolving wheel was absolutely isolated, except
from the axle. But no power applied to the axle could have affected
it, since the latter was firmly fixed, and the wheel hung free,
turning on a loose sleeve that was slipped freely on the axle. The
explanation, therefore, of hidden springs, skillfully devised systems
of wires under the floor, moved by the inventors foot, concealed
machinery etc., fails to meet the requirements of this problem, since
the movement was an isolated one, and no such mechanical force could
have been brought to bear on the loosely hung wheel. That electricity
was not the power employed was shown by a sensitive galvanometer,
connected with the wheel, and remaining unaffected by its motion.

Mr. Keely explains the phenomenon as follows. He claims that the
motion is due to attraction and propulsion (or repulsion) exerted by
the disks on the spokes of the rotating ring. He says that these
disks are "sensitized," or rendered alternately attractive and
repulsive by energy drawn from the ether of surrounding space by
means under his control, and conveyed from the globe along the wire
to the disks. Of the seventeen disks, nine, he says, are polar in
their action, eight depolar. The action of the polar disks on the
spokes is attractive; that of the depolar disks, propulsive (or
repulsive). There being but sixteen spokes, only one can be at any
time directly under a disk, and the result of the differential action
of the attractive and propulsive disks, due to their difference in
number, is a steady and continuous rotation. This rotation, according
to Mr. Keely, can be sustained indefinitely without cost or need of
further attention after the conditions are once produced; is powerful
enough to do work needing great energy; and is so simple in its
management that no special intelligence is required to handle it. It
can be used for any kind of work, as for a street car motor; is
devoid of danger; and cannot get out of order.

I desire the reader to bear in mind that much of what is above
said is given on the authority of Mr. Keelys statement. I have
stated on my own authority only what I actually saw. This much may
truly be said, however, that during the many years of Mr. Keelys
experiments his workshop has been visited by a multitude of
experienced mechanics and others, to whom the experiments above
described and many others have been shown, and there is no testimony
extant that any one of them has discovered evidence of fraudulent
operations.

The "sensitized" disks employed by Mr. Keely in the method jest
described, can, as he states, be used to produce many striking
instances of levitation. One of these experiments is the following: A
cylindrical glass vessel, forty-two inches high, containing a number
of iron weights of several pounds each, is filled with water, and
covered with an iron lid. On this is placed a small metallic disk,
"sensitized," while a platinum wire connects the cover with the
force-producing apparatus. The attraction exerted by the disk causes
the weights to rise in the water, some of them resting midway, others
apparently floating on the top, at the will of the operator. As
regards this experiment, all I saw was a series of photographs
showing the weights at various heights in the jar. Yet it appears to
have been frequently witnessed. On two occasions, as Mr. Keely
states, an observer removed the disk from the top of the jar, when
the suspended weights instantly fell, crashing through the bottom of
the glass cylinder. He claims to be able to make the weight move at
his will, stopping at any height in the water he pleases, and passing
each other as they move up and down through the water. In other
words, he states that he can produce special action in the case of
each separate weight, and control its movements in the water.

The inventor claims to be able to perform surprising feats of
levitation by the aid of these sensitized disks, such as lifting
objects of great weight from the floor to any desired height without
contact. He is also able, he says, by sounding certain combinations
of notes on a sort of mouth instrument, to affect the molecular
vibrations in a thick piece of plate glass in such a manner as to
destroy its cohesion and shiver it to impalpable dust. A friend tells
me that he saw a supported globe made to revolve by the same means,
it responding in curious sympathy to the notes as they varied in
pitch and combination.

Mr. Keely is at present particularly engaged on a large and
complicated piece of machinery which he calls the propellor of an
air-ship, and whose purpose is sufficiently indicated by its name. It
is supplied with three "resonators," or broad sheets of thin metal,
each set to a particular pitch, and each playing some part in the
mysterious process of "drawing power from space." In addition are
sundry disk-shaped and other apparatus, the whole arrangement being
highly complex. The inventor does not claim that this machine is yet
in working order. He declares that, if his remaining experiments
prove satisfactory, he will be able to make it float in the air, at
any desired height, and with sufficient lifting power to carry a
large number of people, and convey them any required distance. To the
eye of the layman, however, there is nothing but the inert machine. A
demonstration of its powers and possibilities must wait on the
completion of the inventors studies and experiments. The world at
large, with creditable caution, will not be ready to believe it can
float until they actually see it floating.

Such is, brief stated, what I have seen and have been told of the
famous Keely motor. Mr. Keely does not claim to be at the end of his
researches, though he does claim the ability to do mechanical work
with the rotating apparatus I have described, there only remaining
the minor task of attaching a pulley to it, and thereby conveying its
force to machinery. He explains his present status to be the
following. During the past years he has issued stock and other
obligations to numerous persons who have aided him in his researches.
Before taking any steps to make his inventions public he wishes to
know just how he stands in regard to these obligations. He has,
therefore, issued a request that all holders of stock shall register
their claims in a selected trust company, and would like, if
available, to replace these varied obligations with a single series
of new obligations. Not until this business difficultly is in some
way overcome does he propose to do anything toward putting his
inventions in practical operation.